Attendance accounting audits

It is a school district's important obligation to maintain a complete, orderly, and consistent audit trail of student attendance reported under the provisions of §41601, so that compliance with all relevant statutes and regulations may be thoroughly verified.

In the event of an "audit exception" in a district's annual independent audit--the auditor notes an instance in which the audit trail is incomplete, conflicting, or when a district is apparently claiming more (or less) apportionment credit than the law allows--a notation may be made in the final audit report, with the district allowed to make a formal response. Final audit reports are sent to the State Controller's Office, which may bring audit exceptions to the attention of CDE for further review and response.

To prevent accounting problems from becoming audit exceptions, CDE encourages school officials responsible for recordkeeping to be in contact with their local auditors more frequently than only during the annual audits themselves. By consulting with their local auditors from time to time as issues arise, districts can alter doubtful practice before it leads to a serious problem.

Common audit exceptions

The most common audit exception is a disagreement between site records and central office records--that is, between the information on the forms used to record attendance and the totals in the periodic compilations of those data by a centralized processing center. For example, a pupil's absence may be counted as excused at the central accounting office, but no record of the confirmation may be found at the school site. Another common audit exception concerns proper retention of records (see "Absences" in Chapter III).

Finally, any amendments to attendance records should be clearly indicated as such, and added to the pre-existing record--it is important not to wipe out the altered original and retain only a "clean" monthly summary. In fact, carefully amended records and duly noted updates are viewed by auditors as evidence of a conscientiously maintained audit trail.

Accountability of responsible school district officials

Responsible school district officials are held accountable for attendance accounting and reporting, but state officials have authority to resolve minor and inadvertent noncompliance with laws and regulations: